Jew World Order

• Video
• Image

Kevin Rudd says Labor is at risk of ‘fading away’ and becoming a marginalised party if it doesn’t change.

Source: The Sunday Telegraph

Kevin Rudd tries on a hat at the launch of Labor MP Kate Jones’s campaign for the seat of Ashgrove in Queensland yesterday. He announced yesterday he’ll soon be a grandfather. Picture: Jamie Hanson
Source: The Courier-Mail

FOREIGN Minister Kevin Rudd says the Labor Party is at risk of “fading away” and becoming a marginalised third party if it doesn’t change.

“There is a real danger that we simply fade away as other progressive parties around the world have done, becoming a shadow of their former selves against the aggressive conservative onslaught of a resurgent right,” Mr Rudd said yesterday at the launch of a book written by a former Labor staffer in Brisbane.

“We are fools if we do not understand that the public has had a gutful of what currently passes for much of our national political debate.”

Calling for the direct election of the ALP’s national executive and national secretary, the former prime minister outlined his ambitious agenda for party reform at a book launch entitled Looking for the Light on the Hill: Modern Labor’s Challenges by Troy Bramston in Brisbane.

On the eve of the ALP conference in Sydney, he called for the event to be shared around the country, arguing New South Wales shouldn’t “own” the party’s peak policy-making forum.

And he’s offered another mea culpa over his troubled leadership conceding that: “I have never believed that the government that I led was somehow infallible.”

He warned the Labor Party must not allow factions to hold too much sway to the point “that our values are lost in the mud of factional intrigue”.

“The core truth is this; the centralised power of the factional leadership of the Australian Labor Party is exercised to the exclusion of the 35,000 members who make up our rank and file,” said the Foreign Minister.

“There should no longer be any argument that Labor needs to reform itself.”

‘Factions don’t represent diversity’

Speaking on Sky News this morning, Mr Rudd added the party had nothing to fear from its members.

“Because I believe they are actually much closer to the Australian people themselves,” he said.

“They represent the diversity of the nation. The factions do not.”

Mr Rudd yesterday called for the public release of the full report by Labor’s Steve Bracks, Bob Carr and John Faulkner into the future of the party, asking what the party was afraid of.

‘Tired of the negativity’

In a veiled swipe at the current leadership of Julia Gillard and Opposition leader Tony Abbott, he said voters were crying out for a positive agenda.

“The Australian people are tired of the wave of negativity that makes up the mainstream of our national politics,” he said.

“I was troubled recently to hear that the latest young Labor National Conference had former senator Graham Richardson as a guest presenter.

“To hold Senator Richardson up as a moral exemplar for the next generation of our party and our movement is just wrong.

“The author of Whatever It Takes – good grief.”

‘A direct challenge to the PM’

Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop said Mr Rudd’s proposals should be seen in the context of his own wish to return to the party’s leadership.

“This is a direct challenge to the prime minister,” Ms Bishop told Sky News.

“His attack on the factions is a reminder of how Julia Gillard took his job from him.

“I think that Kevin Rudd’s reform suggestions have to be put in the context of a leadership challenge.”

Ms Bishop said the Liberal Party was “working through” its own reform proposals.

Bligh: Time to bite the bullet

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who is also the federal president of the ALP, said Mr Rudd’s comments should resonate with the party’s members.

She said factions would always evolve within political parties, but they should not exist to the detriment of others.

“There’s nothing unusual of people of a like mind coming together within organisations, you’ll see it all the time, whether it’s a P and C at school or a political party,” Ms Bligh said today.

“What’s not acceptable is when those organisations, within organisations, call them factions or anything else, become so entrenched and so removed from other members of the group it becomes unhealthy and we are bordering on that.

“It’s time to bite the bullet, modernise and democratise the party.”

Rudd and Rein ‘dancing with joy’

Mr Rudd’s warning about the future of his party came as he received good news about the future of his own family – daughter Jessica, 27, is pregnant.

Mr Rudd said he and wife Therese Rein had been sworn to secrecy about the new addition to their family for the past few months, but could not hide their excitement yesterday after Jessica revealed she would return to Brisbane to give birth in late May.

“Therese and I are so thrilled for Jess and Albert, and can’t wait to meet the little Ruddlet,” he said. “It’s great Jess will be having the baby back here in Brisbane.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph from Japan, Jessica, who is 14 weeks’ pregnant, said the plan was to wait to tell their parents but excitement got the better of them, saying: “Albert and I are so thrilled”.

Ms Rein tweeted: “I’m gonna be a grandma … Dances with joy.”

Family helped Rudd after dumping

Mr Rudd told Sky News this morning his family helped him get through the difficult time after his dumping as prime minister.

The Foreign Minister has given a rare insight into how last year’s leadership change affected him personally.

“Of course it was raw,” Mr Rudd said.

“Let’s just be blunt about it. I’m a human being.

“You guys are human beings, you’ve had ups and downs in your respective careers. And everyone gets knocked around by that. I have been as well.”

Mr Rudd says his family helped get him through.

“I’m enormously blessed by the fact that I’ve got a hugely supportive family,” he said.

“That’s made it possible.”